ChatGPT: The Compelling Potential of Chatbots

ChatGPT extended the edge of AI-based chatbots, showcasing the potential of this technology and raising interest in it from technology market leaders like Microsoft and Google. But people are asking whether ChatGPT can substitute some of our colleagues. This topic became quite popular in the context of massive layoffs in recent days. Being the edge software engineering provider, Intellias decided to make a set of experiments to understand how ChatGPT can impact the job market. Let’s review how each SDLC role can use ChatGPT in their work and answer whether ChatGPT can fully substitute this role.???

Software Engineering?

ChatGPT provides quite a different level of mastery of various programming languages. Overall, we identified that ChatGPT is strong at:?

• Python?
• Java?
• C++?
• C#?
• JavaScript?
• Ruby?
• PHP?
• Swift?
• Go?
• R?
• TypeScript?
• HTML?

ChatGPT knows some patterns and templates but can't write heavy logic from scratch. The best way to use it is to ask ChatGPT for programming tips. There's only one caveat: since ChatGPT was taught on the basis of 2021, both the code and the tips may be outdated. Also, there is a chance of incorrect answers (that is why Stackoverflow restricted AI-generated responses). However, the chatbot can still be very helpful in refactoring and removing routine tasks, which can speed up the programmer's work.

ChatGPT can substitute some of the engineering tools. Take a Linux terminal or Javascript console, for instance. But it will not replace software developers. It can be an excellent alternative to Stackoverflow and tools like Resharper, but it will not create any danger to the software engineer position (at least the current version).?The best use case is to ask juniors to use it instead of pinging seniors too often.???

Business Analysis and Product Management?

At Intellias, we conducted an experiment by trying to use ChatGPT as a product manager on one of our internal projects. First, we gave a little bit of context to the chatbot. Then we started asking questions that we would expect the Product Manager/Product Owner to answer. For one of our projects, we asked what features our main competitors had and we didn’t, and what were the trends in that field on the market.?Also, we asked the chatbot to write a few user stories, however, their quality was quite questionable. ?

So few tips here, ChatGPT can be good (at a basic level) in Market Research, Comparison or feature analysis, Ideation, Customer Insights, and Industry analysis. ChatGPT provides very high-level results in Go-to-market strategy, technical feasibility, and Product roadmapping.???

In terms of writing user stories, ChatGPT could be helpful as an idea generator, I can’t say it can somehow substitute BA but may provide good ideas. To make results more relevant you need to provide as much information and context as possible. It will not guarantee that user stories generated by ChatGPT can be immediately taken to the backlog, but it may save a lot of time.?

Furthermore, the chatbot showed great results in suggesting FAQ questions and defining events where we needed to present our product. Content making for the website was done just great as well as some manual descriptions. I don’t think this tool is able to substitute our BA, but it has great potential to save time. Clearly, it can perform some tasks on the level of junior BA/PO.?

Technical Documentation?

During our experiment, the AI chatbot also handled documentation for our product integration. It took data from a few open-source platforms and visualized it using our homemade toolset. ChatGPT provided text with integration setup details and installation guidance. The text went into the documentation almost unchanged. If I had read it somewhere else, I’d never thought that it was written by a neural network, not a human.??

Try conducting a little experiment of your own. Just ask ChatGPT the following: “Act as a tech writer. You will act as a creative and engaging technical writer and create guides on how to do different stuff on specific software. I will provide you with the basic steps of app functionality and you will come up with an engaging article on how to do those basic steps. You can ask for screenshots, just add (a screenshot) where you think there should be one and I will add those later. These are the first basic steps of the app functionality:??

1. Click on the download button depending on your platform??
2. Install the file.??
3. Double-click to open the app

Data?

ChatGPT is obviously a great tool for working with data and code. You can give it a table in CSV format and ask to convert it to JSON by sending an example template. The chatbot can respond to you both with a ready-made JSON object and with code in a programming language convenient for you.?

Recruitment?

ChatGPT is useful for writing job postings and vacancies. You can ask it to write the text in the desired style (according to the format of the platform or your corporate policies). Honestly, sometimes its texts look better than the ones written by my colleagues. Chatbot’s unobvious but very useful feature is the ability to select icons for theses. ChatGPT can quickly select emojis or icons from the Fontwesome library.??

Marketing?

We also tested ChatGPT for writing marketing texts and preparing materials for social networks. For example, if you already have a finished article, you can ask ChatGPT to create a Twitter thread based on it. But be careful. Sometimes it makes mistakes. For instance, if you ask the bot to write a biography of a public figure, it may well insert incorrect biographical data.??

Creative writing?

No, the natural language processing (NLP) technology, such as ChatGPT, can’t write you a book like “Harry Potter”. It’s not yet capable of creating novels with complex and engaging storylines, characters, and settings. The thing is, the chatbot can’t come up with new ideas or concepts or combine and rearrange existing ideas in creative ways. But if you give it a proper frame, you can get a portion of decent content. ChatGPT can even perform a role of a music composer, a rapper, or a poet.???

The overall verdict is that ChatGPT on its current level of maturity can’t fully substitute any of the existing roles in software product engineering, but it can significantly increase the performance of the team, eliminate some of the routine tasks and boost the efficiency of the team.??

You may also ask the chatbot to play a specific role like UI/UX designer or Security specialist. Simply try giving it more context and sending requests like: “I need help developing an effective cybersecurity strategy for my company.”?

You can find more interesting ways how to use ChatGPT here. And if you have any questions on how to adopt the NLP technology feel free to contact me or Intellias.??